Conclusion

Summary

A writer who constructs a novelistic hybridization must ensure that the character or narrator who uses a particular language has, in fact, the sensibility that is necessary to structure such utterances. The novels I have analysed in the preceding chapters show the writer' awareness of this fact. Cheong, in Shadow Theatre, makes a special effort to give the background of the speakers, in order to show why they use the language the way they do. Take for instance, Malika, a servant who dropped out of school at the age of twelve. The narrator makes it a point to inform the reader that Malika has become a member of the library and reads every night. So the reader can accept the fact that she can use the English language rather creatively.

Since it was half-past five in the morning, the air still bluey bluey and crisp as dead leaves and noisy with calling birds, as Malika would describe it.

(Cheong 2002, p. 12)

The reader accepts this description which the narrator, Lulu Mendez, says, is Malika' language because of the prior pains taken to establish her language capability. In contrast, a character such as Abdullah in Shirley Geok-lin Lim' Joss & Gold does not sound credible as he is a university graduate in the sixties who speaks like an uneducated man, or like someone who has no real understanding of the grammatical structure of the English language.

“The politics today is not good.” Abdullah crunched on a handful of peanuts. “The Chinese not like the government so much but they make big mistake. It is this government that protect them. The Malays are very very patient. We don' say Chinese no good. All people good. Our religion teach us this. But why Chinese say Malay no good, government no good, want to change government?”

(Lim 2001, p. 69)

Here the writer displays a mechanical portrayal of a low variety of English, which neither reflects the Singapore-Malayan English variety, nor the kind of language that was spoken by Malay university graduates prior to 13 May 1969 in the peninsula. Lim' desire to represent the low variety of English in Malaysia spoken by the Malays does not fit this particular character because of his educational background and also because of his political awareness.